I am frantically putting shit in boxes. I have to leave in 15 minutes to tutor. I am tutoring all day, which is craziness. I am also continuing to have to play the fill the meter game. I have had 3 close calls already, where I forgot about it and had to run out there and hope I didn't have a ticket.
11am: I come up with a brilliant Idea. I will use my phone alarm to remind me when I need to feed the meter. I pull up the alarm and efficiently change my alarm from '8' to '1'. I am a genius.
145pm: I realize the meter has expired and my phone alarm never went off. What happened?? I open my phone and realize I that although I changed the '8' to a '1', I never changed the "a.m." to "p.m."
I am retarded.
I run outside praying for another miracle. Not today, though. There's another $65 ticket. So now I'm racking up $65/day in parking fines because I'm too offended by the idea of paying one of those damn Manhattan parking garages that charges $45/day. If I don't get better at this, then at this rate, by the time I give this car back at the end of its lease, on Dec 9th, which is 116 days away, I will have racked up over $7500 in parking tickets. I put more money in the meter and set my phone properly this time.
8pm: done tutoring. Now off to my Last Night in NYC party, at a nice rooftop bar called 230 5th Ave. Keiko and I head down, and make it through the gauntlet of bouncers.
Aside: Getting into Manhattan bars is enormously complicated. The basic algorithm is this:
1) Do you know someone who works inside, preferably the owner/manager? If yes, you can almost certainly get in. If no, proceed to:
2) Are you a hot woman, where hotness is defined as scoring a 9 or above on the standard hotness scale (SHS)? If yes, you can probably get in. Odds are 95% in your favor. If no, proceed to:
3) Are you in a group, at least 50% of which is composed of women 8 or above on the SHS? If yes, your odds of getting in are still reasonably good- 75% or so. If no, proceed to:
4) Are you in a group, at least half of which is composed of women 6 or higher on the SHS? If so, your odds are about even at this point- 50%. If no, proceed to:
5) Are you willing to purchase "bottle service"? In case you're not familiar, "bottle service" means: take a garden variety bottle of cheap liquor, say a $12.99 bottle of vodka. Now, imagine that very same bottle of vodka, except that you're now paying $400 for it. That's "bottle service." What is happening right now is, you're negotiating with the bouncer over how many of these "bottles" your group is going to pay for. The number of bottles they will demand you buy will depend largely on the percentage and hotness of the women in your group. If there are no women in your group, you'd better REALLY want to get into this place, because you're REALLY going to pay for it.
If you're not willing to pay for bottle service, proceed to:
6) Find another bar.
Fortunately, Keiko is super hot, so they let us in. Anyway, it's Wednesday night, and 230 5th is not the flavor-of-the-month bar, and it's still quite early, so I'm pretty sure everyone will get in even without a Keiko. We stake out an area inside, on comfy cushions, near where everyone will pass on their way inside. Soon others file in, including my boss and his wife, and we end up spending the next 4.5 hours eating and drinking, which my boss pays for. Given the number of people and the price of drinks at this place, I can't even imagine what that bill was like. But here are a few pics from the evening:
Me and Keiko
Me, Jac, J-Rob, Adam, Tom, plus Ed, hamming it up as always
Almost everyone
130am: I would love to stay here and keep drinking, but I have to pack. The party breaks up and we head home.
230am: Keiko and I are frantically packing boxes. Tomorrow I am scheduled to tutor, pick up the trailer in the afternoon, tutor, load the trailer, tutor, and then leave. Keiko is showing saintly patience as I mercilessly employ her help. Progress is being made, but I'm beginning to sweat internally a little bit. Do I really have this much shit? Is it really this disorganized? But I am determined...
330 .a.m, BMFRTE T minus 19 hrs and counting...
Must sleep. Although I have not uttered this aloud, I'm beginning to think we're leaving a little later than 1030pm tomorrow night. Actually, I'm beginning to think we're leaving a LOT later than 1030pm tomorrow night...
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